10 Reasons I Don’t Like Social Media

1. Slacktivism

I wrote a rant about slacktivism in the wake of the YesAllWomen hashtag onslaught, which by the way, is barely surviving on life support now. I just checked and while there are still tweets trickling in, the “movement” part of the movement is gone. It’s just a sad vestige of what it was, like a party the morning after or Myspace.

Slacktivism gives the appearance of supporting/not supporting something without actually doing anything about it. Passing along “if you agree, share this” type posts does nothing and social media is rife with slacktivism.

2. Nosiness

I mentioned the other day that my mom is my Facebook friend and it ruined Facebook for me. I never use the account attached to my name anymore.

I am a private person. I do not like my phone and Google maps knowing where I am all the time. Unless I’m using GPS, I have location services turned off. Still, it’s very easy to track people through the internet these days.

There are two monsters in my life that I’m hiding from. Every once in a while, I search myself to see how much of me can be found and I’m always infuriated by how much of my personal data is out there for anyone to see and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.

3. This crap:

I got that message this morning on Twitter. It annoyed me and was going to reply with something incredibly rude. Instead, I responded with something marginally rude only to find out that it was a bot message sent by Tweepdash. The person who used Tweepdash unintentionally sent that tweet to every single one of his followers who wasn’t following him.

That is some total bullshit right there and makes me never, ever want to use Tweepdash, not that I would ever be likely to use it anyway. If you follow me, cool. If not, whatever.

4. Zero accountability

You can say anything you want on social media about anyone. You don’t have to say it to their face. Even if you tag them, there’s nothing they can do about it. I can say you wear stinky ladies undergarments on your head all over social media, and there’s not much you can do about it.

Much like newspapers saying bullshit on the front page, then printing a tiny retraction buried in the back to cover their asses, saying awful shit about people on social media is incredibly easy and we don’t even have to print retractions.

And this doesn’t apply just to people either. You don’t have to have facts anymore. You don’t even have to have an informed opinion. You can say any old random wrong thing about anything without any sources or science to back it up and at least some people will buy it and pass it along.

5. Push notifications

“So and so wants you to join them in playing Bingo Slot Car Poker With Farm Animals on Facebook!” Yeah, that’s nice. No. If I want to play a game, I’ll go play one. I don’t want you selling me on one.

I have a low level addiction to Candy Crush Saga. I play it on my phone during breaks from work. When I’m out of lives, I do something else. My goal is to make it all the way though without giving them even one cent. I’ve been stuck on certain levels for a week or two.

I don’t want to connect to my Facebook account. I want to play your stupid game for free in my free time without anyone knowing, because playing Candy Crush is mildly embarrassing. Stop trying to make me notify my friends.

6. It forces you to care what others think.

We’ve all posted something and thought it was brilliant only to have no one respond. “Nobody likes me! I’m going to die alone!” All of us, no matter how secure in ourselves we are, have wondered why our genius went unliked or uncommented upon.

There’s something about social media that makes us care how many friends, followers, likes and retweets we have. Do you know how many friends you have in the real world? Unless the answer is less than five, you probably don’t, because we don’t calculate friendship that way anywhere but online.

If someone responds to something you posted, you read it. You’ll probably respond to it. Why? Because they responded to you, which means they love you!

7. It’s created a new breed of attention whores.

(theoatmeal.com)

Selfie has been added to the dictionary. Think about the real implications of that sentence for a second. Taking a picture of yourself and posting it online for other people to see and like has been added to the dictionary.

What did attention whores do before social media? How did they get the attention they so desperately crave? I really don’t know.

8. Communication is truncated.

Before I can post something on Twitter, I have to rearrange it and delete unnecessary words to make sure I haven’t gone over the 140 character limit. When I write blog posts, I never worry about word count.

140 characters is not enough to dialog. At best, it’s the opening for discussion, but it is not a discussion in and of itself. By its limited nature, it can’t be.

Imagine sitting down at a table with friends and limiting yourself to speaking only in 140 characters. You wouldn’t do that in real life, so why do we think of social media as a replacement for that? It kills spontaneity.

9. We censor ourselves.

Even when our moms aren’t watching, we don’t post the first thing that pops to mind. At least, I don’t. In real life, we speak for our audience. If we’re speaking to grandma, we’re not going to speak in the same style or tone that we would with our closest friends, unless, of course, grandma is your closest friend. With social media, you have to speak to everyone.

Imagine sitting at the same table with friends I mentioned above while knowing that what you say is going on the internet for everyone to see forever, including your mom or boss. In that situation, you would naturally censor yourself and that’s what we do on social media. By having everything we say available for everyone to see, we’re not being ourselves. Social media is not a natural form of communication.

10. It is not a replacement for real interaction.

It gives the illusion of staying in contact with people, but really, liking someone’s post isn’t at all comparable to having a conversation with someone in the same room or even talking on the phone. Social media makes us forget that.

Having lived in three very different and far apart places in the US, I use social media to stay in touch with people who live far away, but it’s not the same. 🙂 is not a replacement for actually seeing someone’s smile in person. You cannot hug ((hugs)).

“Go outside and play with your friends” is a command my mom gave me many times as a child and now, I say the same to you.

And, in the ultimate form of irony, I will now post this on WordPress, which will automatically share it on my Twitter and Facebook pages, because that’s how I roll… like a hypocrite. Tada!

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I like social media for humor and information purposes. I like that I can stay connected to family in Michigan since I’m broke and can’t go see them when I’d like to. That being said, I agree with you on all these points. MySpace, then Facebook and Twitter, have created a horde of attention whores who annoy the piss outta me.

Well, sheesh. I didn’t know I annoyed you that much. I thought maybe I’d annoy the coffeh out of you, or maybe the beer or something, but not your actual piss. Hmm, wait, maybe those are the same thing? Now I’m confused.
What do you mean I’m not an attention whore?
How dare you!!
Slander!
Lies!!
Everyone look at me!!

Well, …. how about that. And, I completely missed it. Which, considering the movie I guess I shouldn’t be too upset by. But, considering it is a movie I have seen, I should have at least guessed that’s what you were doing.
For shame, Matticus, for shame. hangs head lowwhile smirkingand day dreaming about the beer waiting for him when he gets home

Is it funny that the Little Prince loves the broom? Any time he walks by the closet where it is stored he points and says “Ba.” The “ba” of these days is sounding more and more like broom than the “ba” of a month ago… but, it is still just ba for now. Anyway, occasionally, we open the closet so he can get the broom, he breaks into a wide grin and goes around the downstairs sweeping everything… the floor, the doors, the rug, the top of the kitchen table, us, … Good times. Oh, the point of all of that? I’m sure the Little Prince could tell you lots of good things to do with broom handles.

I use it to stay connected to far away people, too, but being separated from Male for so long and then suddenly being in the same room made me realize just how not in touch texting and facebooking really are.

Hooray for hypocrisy.
I was just going to like the post and be on my merry way, for the fun of it, but decided I should tell you that was my plan, which, of course, ruined the plan. Alas, it ain’t easy being silly like me, you see? I knew you’d agree.
Happy Friday! Have a fantastic weekend, out in the sun, away from the dull glow and glare of computer monitors and tiny phone screens.

When I first started blogging, that was one of my favorite things to do. I even did a series on the “hypocrisy of me.”
But, then I got famous and had to knock that off so that everyone would take me seriously.
😉

absolutely brilliant – agreed on all counts. and guilty of a few. I find myself constantly exhausted, and I think it is because I opened up this Pandora’s box of foolishness called social media. being peppered 24 hours a day by requests and opinions and reactions is driving me batty

I don’t have a Twitter account; I don’t see the point. I do have a Facebook account, but it’s only to find out what my grown kids are up to. I rarely ever post anything on Facebook. Even my blog is not connected to Facebook. The funny thing about social media is that it tends to make us think we’re being social, when in reality, it’s the most antisocial thing to come along. Who uses the phone anymore, aside from those solicitors who always call up at dinner time? Everyone communicates via text, 140 bite tweets, or via Facebook. As you so rightly noted, communicating via social media “isn’t at all comparable to sitting down in the same room with someone and having a conversation.” That is becoming a lost art.

I don’t really see the distinction between Twitter and Facebook. I only have a regular (non-blog) Facebook account because my friends use it to invite me to things. If it weren’t for that, I would have deleted it long ago.

I will admit, when I read posts like this, I get just a little smug inside for having never subjected myself to Facebook or Twitter. I’m sure I sometimes sound like some old codger complaining about the rise of television in the 50’s, but I think the social media boom of the last decade is leading to a murky future where personal and social skills (especially for those born in this century) are eventually going to become devalued, and perhaps even non-existent…

I love everything you write but I sometimes don’t hit the like button because I’m afraid you probably are sick of seeing my gravitar and go WTF, there she is again! Yes to everything you said here. I joined twitter because it doubles your followers count. We’re all crazy.

This post automatically made me think of something I saw on the news last night. This poor woman was getting the shit kicked out of her and her only defender was her TWO YEAR OLD son. Meanwhile, there were tons of bystanders doing what? You guessed it. Filming the entire damn thing with their fucking phones. I was appalled but the reporters even went on to say how desensitized our society has become to real danger/violence & how technology obsessed we’ve become.

Exactly. I felt so bad for her. If I were there I so would’ve jumped in. I was raised in an area where we “don’t play that shit”. 😛 It shocks me though that none of the idiots at least called the cops or something. I get not wanting to get involved but, she was taking a serious beating. Poor woman could have died!

Wow. Look at all those people! And not one of them did a thing. That’s so sad. That little kid’s reaction breaks my heart.

The sad thing is, those idiots standing around filming probably thought they were helping by “collecting evidence” or some other such justification for being uncaring assholes. It’s another form of slacktivism.

I totally agree. That’s why I made the connection between what you were saying & what I saw there. It’s a shame. Thankfully, not all of us are zombie robots. I fear for the younger ones though that have been raised on this shit.

Thank you so much for sharing this. I can’t get over how the child is the most helpful person there, among a sea of able-bodied adults with phones. Disgusting. This video and the comments to this post have inspired me to write something about this phenomenon. Just FYI if you want to read it; I’ll be posting it later today and including this blog and yours, along with this story you linked to.

Yes! I saw something similar involving a guy on the NYC subway tracks. A handful of guys there weren’t helping the one guy who was trying to lift him out before a train came. And of course, we know this because of the guy who was just filming it all, doing nothing. I know not everyone would be willing to jump into the tracks themselves, but how about trying to reach 911 with your phone instead? Or running up to find a subway employee? The man in the tracks doesn’t get out in time but miraculously doesn’t get hurt by the train — it goes right over him. If you’re curious to see the video it’s here: http://gothamist.com/2014/04/16/disturbing_video_subway_incident.php

Ugh, I’m really, really feeling just like this post on all social media, including writing and reading blogs (not this one of course). I absolutely HATE waiting for comments and then going wait did I write something bad, why aren’t they commenting, or oh I got a comment, hey why didn’t I get more comments, or likes, or page visits. And why do people love the stupidest posts i have ever written and ignore the good ones. And . . .

You get the drift. 🙂 After a while, you almost forget about the writing. Also, I’ve seen some people just change on social media until you can’t recognize them. Maybe I’ve changed. Maybe it’s way too late on a Friday afternoon. Eh, whatever happens, I will always love my Sad Pony and Squirrel art.

I like Facebook because it allows me to connect to my family who live on an entirly different continent. I only see them every 3 – 5 years, and it is a great way to stay in touch. That and Whats App. But you are right you can’t really hug ((hugs))

I agree with your blog – even to the extent that the only game I ever play is Candy Crush Saga (usually when I am bored with everything else there is to do.)

RE #7 – I have a Tumblr (under a different name) for almost 3 years – with a grand total of 45 followers. Why do I keep posting to it? For my own amusement. I love to go back and look at my own posts every once and awhile. Most of them I have forgotten. It is like visiting an old friend – they make me happy all over again! 🙂

I only have facebook for my writing. I deleted my other one years ago. I have twitter, but I have no idea what to do on it, so I do nothing lol. I don’t have a smartphone either. Just a dumb one. And I read about that woman getting the beating and no one helping, that is some scary sad shit. I would have done something. I might have gotten my ass kicked too, but I would have tried.

For the most part I agree but have to admit since moving to another country it is nice to have Facebook and my blog to share my experiences here with my family and friends who I can’t just pop over for a visit to share photos and tell about how awesome Japan is and phone calls are great but not the same. Selfies for us are mostly regarding new places we are exploring and events, mostly because I hate being in front of a camera. I think there is a role for social media but I agree some take it to obscene levels.

“Go out and play” is the best advice I heard in a long time! 🙂 Yesterday I went canoeing with my husband and some young people from church. I was in a boat with one of my best guy friends and we had a lot of fun pointing out real things like ducklings, weird trees, and the random eel; and we some good conversations and nice moments of lazy (or busy) silence. Beats moping around on facebook by lengths. Social media make me feel depressed when they are my sole way of interaction for more than one day. The only online game I play every now and then is 2048, which can be mildy addicting!

I can’t even add anything to this, it’s too perfect. I mean… I still enjoy social media and love using it to share my tragic existence with the world but I’ve thought every single one of these things. I’ve probably committed a few of them too.

Reblogged this on blabberingwondering and commented:
And also the inane need to look cool, righteous, smart with stupid posts, and opinions.. I hate it when people constantly tweet about what they are doing, like listening to #raindrops, #watching a #blue #bird… Crossed a street and so on… Argh!

Oh I so agree with your points, particularly the privacy one. That’s the same reason I hesitate to use LinkedIn, but “everyone” tells me I should. To be accurate, I did years ago, but hated how my whole work history popped up in an Internet search in one neat little package — so I ended up deleting it soon after. I know I could limit it, but then doesn’t that defeat the purpose? And the whole “follow me back” thing that you wrote about gets me, too. Like someone will follow me on Twitter and soon after say we should connect on Facebook too — um, not only am I not a Facebook fan, but we JUST connected on Twitter. Why must you immediately ask me to do that elsewhere? I also remember getting a follow notification from a user more than once, which I found odd; their name seemed familiar, and when I checked I was right. It seems they kept unfollowing and re-following me in an attempt to get me to follow back, within the span of just a few days. Geez! Way too aggressive; if that was due to something like Tweepdash, I also don’t see why anyone uses services like that. It annoys people! Sorry, my comment has turned into a rant. My point is, great post — you’re so right!

Great post!! I wrote something similar ages ago, though nowhere near as fun as this. Thanks for putting this out.

I am proud to say , I avoid Facebook like a plague these days. Its annoying, I don’t want to know where my ‘friends’ are every moment. Plus I have observed a decent post on there is usually ignored and the drab vane post gets even more views. In short the vain just get more vainer( is that a word?!) .

I am on all these social sites no thanks to the blog, sometimes it feels like they suck the life outta me.Counter productive!
What to do.